∇

troperville

∇

tools

∇

toys

• Dan Hibiki from the Street Fighter games. While his father Go was a great fighter, Dan himself is widely considered to be the weakest character (storyline-wise- also objectively gameplay-wise) in the series, and yet he still thinks of himself as the greatest fighter who ever lived. He's actually so weak that when Demitri Maximoff (a vampire) offers to make Dan into one of his servants, he takes back the offer after noting how low Dan's strength is compared to everybody else he's met. Dan himself is very insulted. ("Only the strong and beautiful can serve me. You fail on BOTH counts!").
  • Certain media shifts this a bit. In the manga Sakura Ganbaru, he's not an elite fighter, but enough of one to make a living, and perceptive enough to remain a mentor to Sakura, as well as call Ken out on his injuries after the latter (barely) won against Sakura.
  • Then again, in the Sakura comic mini-series by Udon, she agrees to study under Dan Hibiki only because "There's something to be learned from every fighter... even the bad ones!" Dan, of course, is utterly oblivious to this.
  • Also note that by our standards he'd be one of the greatest fighters in the world... it's just that Street Fighter uses a different scale. He's still said to have been able to win tournaments, however, so he's not a complete joke.
  • Rufus of Street Fighter IV is fairly similar to Dan. He's very full of himself and believes he is the best fighter in America. The other characters constantly remind him of how he's too fat or his fighting style is too flashy for him to be a serious fighter. Gameplay-wise though, he's an above-average character.
    • Although Ryu does point out in his after battle quote "your style has some serious potential, but your moves are too flashy", so Rufus' in game abilities were apparently not lost on the designers. On the other hand, outside of dating, He's show to be very kind and aware of his lover's feelings, and fighting he really does have an overblown ego.
  • In Pocket Fighter, Dan is made to look even more weak. His introduction begins with, "Upon deciding he was the strongest fighter in the world...", and in his ending, he gets harshly criticised by his own student. To quote, "All of your moves look retarded in addition to being completely useless in battle!"
• Waluigi from the Super Mario Bros. series, certainly qualifies. He thinks he's the greatest sports player ever, that "everybody cheats but him", and constantly cheers on him, but barely anyone notices him, both in and out of universe, having it even worse as a butt monkey than Luigi, and that's saying something.
• Edgar from Final Fantasy VI. OK, he created several powerful tools on his own, and engineered Figaro Castle's defense mechanism, and he's also the king of said castle, but he thinks he's an amazingly suave ladies' man... something with which any lady will disagree. Poor Edgar has the misfortune of living in a reality where no women are attracted to his money, power, looks or intelligence.
  • At least, no women over the age of twelve. There's at least one child NPC out there with a schoolgirl crush on him. Along with a bar floozy, but then she had already hit on Cyan.
  • It is notable that the one time where it's mentioned that his charms worked, it ended up saving the entire party from the Empire's ambush.
  • Also, the retranslated GBA versions seemed indicated that their version of Edgar was a bit more successful with the ladies.
    Locke: ...And watch out for a certain lecherous young king who shall remain nameless. The guy moves in like a hawk!
• Another Final Fantasy example would be Edge, Final Fantasy IV's Badass ninja. He flirts with the ladies quite often and likes to flaunt his over-inflated ego in a regular basis. Unfortunately for Edge, his crush Rydia seems to be disgusted by his attitude.
• One recurring NPC in Final Fantasy Tactics A2, the editor of the Bonga Bugle magazine (suggested to be more of a tabloid, really, but who's counting) lives and breathes this trope. It's surprising the localization team didn't name him some variation of the name.
  • Even your party members question his personality and methods after completing a mission for him. The character also likes to brag how tough he is in a fight, yet most of the fights he is in has him either running away scared or blindly bum rushing enemies that are ten times stronger than he is. If you get sick of him, there's one mission where you can go kick the Head Editor's ass. Funnily enough, there's also a wallpaper with his mug on it◊.
• Subverted in Disgaea 2. Against all odds, it turns out that talking frog and resident Butt Monkey Tink wasn't lying when he claimed his un-cursed form was a total Bishōnen. Really, we swear!
  • Also subverted in the first Disgaea: as it turns out, Vyers/Mid-Boss has been playing at Stealth Mentor and feigning incompetence for pretty much the entire game. Of course, it's implied that while the buffoonery was faked, the ego was genuine. Turns out Laharl really does take after his father.
  Vyers: Why am I so awesome?
  • Mao from Disgaea 3 qualifies; he constantly boasts about his brilliance and 1.8 million "E.Q.", but as Almaz points out, his calculations are never correct. He also assumes he is far more respected and admired by the other students than is actually the case. And the game would be over in half the time if he could just admit that he needs the help of others, and that his friends are more than just servants he allows to tag along with him.
• Persona 4 has Teddie, who, despite being an empty bear suit, thinks that he's the world's most suave ladies man. He gets a Bishōnen human form later on, and sadly for the other characters, his charms work on most non-story-related ladies.
• Persona 3's Junpei Iori, who thinks of himself as an action hero and ladies' man, and flaunts himself as such to anyone who will listen (or anyone who doesn't immediately berate him for it, that is.) Most infamously during the Beach Episode, where his success with women is taken down a peg or ten, and he quickly becomes The Resenter when the much more efficient, and unassuming Main Character proves himself the real hero.
  • Thankfully, he does eventually matures into a legitimate Bad Ass in his own right after he falls hard for Chidori and literally Took a Level in Badass when she sacrifices her life for him, and when Takaya mocks her sacrifice, he proceeds to make Strega his bitch to the point Jin is begging Takaya to flee before he gets killed.
• Several of the girls of Touhou are legends in their own minds:
  • Cirno, Touhou's resident ditz, proclaims herself to be the strongest and the smartest in Gensokyo. In reality, she's probably just the strongest and smartest fairy, and unfortunately for her, fairies in the Touhouverse are essentially mooks. Her name and number are practically synonymous with Baka.
    • Though the possibility of a subversion is creeping in with evidence her boast aren't quite as disproportionate as they seem. In Phantasmagoia of Flower View, Shikieki says she has "too much" power for a fairy, and in Great Fairy Wars she forces Bonus Boss Marisa to go all-out with her "fairy extermination spells" to beat her, though she apparently comes off second-best despite technically winning the danmaku brawl.
  • Mima of the very first Touhou game, Highly Responsive to Prayers is quite powerful, but nowhere near as strong as she says she is.
    • The Fandom, on other hand, usually makes her as powerful as she says she is.
  • Mystia isn't as featured as Cirno, but she does have her moments. Enough to make Alice say, "Mpf. Enough chirping, you windbag."
  • Nazrin's profile in Symposium of Post-Mysticism describes her as this. Despite being a small and easily intimidated mouse familiar, she has a huge ego that dwarfs her frame, mostly thanks to being pals with Bishamonten.
• Todd "Maniac" Marshall, from the Wing Commander series, though the official Strategy Guide for Wing Commander Prophecy notes in Maniac's bio that he has the 14th highest kill score from the Kilrathi War (behind Blair's 11th), so there's evidence he isn't totally an unskilled braggart, at least in the cockpit. Romantic pursuits, however, are another issue entirely...
  • It would probably be far lower if he didn't live up to his callsign. A new player might be forgiven for wondering whether his AI functioned correctly...
• Barry Dejay of the Backyard Sports series. He claims he can be the best at sports even with a broken ankle and a promotion to announcer.
  • Also, the fictional Barry Bonds. But he admits that he has a huge ego.
  • Don't forget Tony. He goes to town with this trope.
• While there's several examples in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky, Chatot boasts the most grossly overinflated ego of the lot. Not only does he act as the Guild's head of intelligence despite being a Horrible Judge of Character, he spends most of his time being staggeringly inept, refusing to listen to anyone else and basking in praise directed at others. His rare shining moments are very few and far between.
• In Mass Effect, Conrad Verner seems to think that he's just as badass as Commander Shepard. In the first game, he tries to convince Shepard to make him a Spectre. One of Shepard's responses? "Conrad, I haven't been shot in the head nearly enough times to make that seem like a good idea." In the second, he appears (wearing a replica of Shepard's N7 armor) at a bar, trying to shut it down because a corrupt weapons merchant convinced him the bartender was selling red sand...which, even if she had, it wouldn't matter, because red sand is completely legal on that planet. Two of Shepard's possible three responses involve causing bodily harm to him. (And if Shepard is female, he comes across as a sort of Stalker with a Crush.)
  • He at one point literally tells Shepard to "sit back and watch how it's done." Shepard was pretty much giving him/herself an implied Face Palm for that entire conversation.
  • In Mass Effect 3, this definitely describes Kai Leng. While he is certainly a legitimate threat, he's not as dangerous as he would like to think he is and his over-inflated sense of pride leads to him woefully underestimating Shepard at several points throughout the game.
    • Most of Kai Leng's dialogue also seems to suggest that he's somewhat obsessed with Shepard, wanting to make them recognise him as their ultimate arch-nemesis. Between the Reapers and the Illusive Man, Shepard on the other hand, barely seems to notice Kai Leng at all.
• The Scout from Team Fortress 2, at least in the "Meet The Scout" video. He considers it "kind of a big deal" that there's someone who hasn't heard of him.
• Murray from the Monkey Island series. In his own mind, he is a powerful demonic force, the harbinger of your doom, and the forces of darkness will applaud him as he strides through the gates of Hell, carrying your head on a pike!
  Guybrush: 'Stride'?
  Murray: ...All right then, 'roll'! Roll through the gates of Hell!... Must you take the fun out of everything?
• Lurbuk, an Orc bard from The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, is so convinced of his own greatness that he doesn't realize you're there to kill him, even as you draw your blade and tell him he's about to die. As testament to just how bad he is, so many people want him dead that they had to hold a lottery to determine who got to hire the assassin.
  • Also Ragnar the Red, who is mentioned in one of the songs as being a worthless lout and braggart.
• Despite the Fire, Giant Nail, and Theme Song, Bang Shishigami is said to be the weakest fighter in the entire BlazBlue line up story-wise. Every time he wins a fight the opponent remarks how lucky he was or how they were stupid for losing to him. You could tell him this to his face all while taking him apart and he will honestly have no clue. However, in a subversion, this only lasts about in the first installment. By the second installment, he's been racking up respects, while still being considered a joke by most of the characters, and it has been revealed that he also has a hidden Nox Nyctores... that he has yet to know how to use, and Word Of God say that he will become a very important character in the third installment.
• Bang's Guilty Gear prototype, Chipp Zanuff, the American Ninja also fits this trope.
  • Though Chipp may be a double subversion, as while few take him seriously, save for himself, the PWAB's analysis highlights him being one of only two remaining users of ki and the only ninja...and then goes on to mention his rash behavior and the ease with which he can be manipulated. A straighter example would be Robo-Ky who, in spite of his ego, is discounted as a threat by both opponents and his own superiors.
• Portal's Aperture Science, judging from a slideshow of theirs. The far better-known Black Mesa proposes modest budgets for its projects and is usually given as much. Aperture requests ridiculously large sums of money and usually gets the exact opposite.
  • This may be more a case of Reed Richards Is Useless or Cut Lex Luthor a Check. Aperture's inventions - all of them - pretty much snap the laws of physics in half and would be unbelievably useful anywhere besides in a pointlessly massive underground deathtrap. The company and Cave Johnson have every right to be insanely proud of their inventions, and Aperture's fiscal problems are most likely excused by Rule of Funny and completely failing to apply those inventions in a more practical manner.
• Almost all incarnations of Sonic the Hedgehog are depicted as somewhat boastful and overconfident of their skills. The current video games version is shown to be extremely cocky, however he is somewhat playful and far less jerkish about it than most standard examples of the trope.
• Subverted in Kefka in Final Fantasy VI, who at first seems like an egotistical Harmless Villain who fits this trope. He would subvert it when he becomes a Monster Clown by poisoning an entire castle. For much of the first leg of the game, he seems to be a villain who still fits this trope as the half-mad ego-maniacal supporter of the supposed Big Bad. Players were itching to really dish out a good bit of karmic justice to him in the Disc One Final Dungeon. Then he subverts it again when he goes From Nobody to Nightmare, prompting the second half of the game where he is the ultimate adversary.
• Qara in Neverwinter Nights 2 is a vain, arrogant sorceress who loves fire and will kill strangers on a whim or for "practice". Calling her out on this or suggesting that maybe she's not the best thing since sliced bread will result in a temper tantrum and a loss of influence. She's The Scrappy for a reason.
• Gene from God Hand was like this before he got the titled God Hand. We're shown how he rescued Olivia from two demons who were going to cut her hand...but he only managed that much because he made a good distraction. His punches did absolutely nothing and he lost one of his arms for the trouble. Oopsie poopsie.
• Gromm'ko from World Of Warcraft fits. He claims that his raptor, Butcher, can take on anything and anyone.
• Ryder from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas talks big and acts like he's "too fucking intelligent" to go to school. While Ryder is a decent shot with a gun, even Sweet tells Ryder that CJ (the player character) has been doing all the work and might be better at being a gangbanger than Ryder is. After you discover Ryder betrayed your gang for a rival gang, he still acts like he's the best. Luckily, you get to put a bullet in his head.
• Rufus from Deponia is convinced he's the smartest, coolest and sexiest man on the planet and better than absolutely everyone else he meets. While not completely bereft of talents, he's a scruffy, stuck-up, selfish, clumsy, idiotic buffoon.